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Product category: CAD/CAM systems (not machine tools)
News Release from: LVD (UK) | Subject: CADMAN integrated design, programming, simulation
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial Team on 26 March 2002

Integrated systems helps factory and
customers

A sheetmetalworker installed a fully integrated design, CNC machine programming and simulation system to improve factory efficiency and help in design for manufacture advice to customers.

A sheetmetalworker installed a fully integrated design, CNC machine programming and simulation system to improve efficiency on a press brake and punch and help in design for manufacture advice to customers During the school half-term, the two directors of sheet metal subcontractor De-Met persuaded one of its customers, a manufacturer of flight simulators, to bring one of its attractions to the company Open House and invited families of its workforce, suppliers and customers as well as local people along to have a ride

De-Met is no stranger to the local community at Kingswinford.

In fact, most of its business has been won locally since it was formed by Gary Trim and Lee Kempson in June 1998.

Indeed, the steel structure for an eight metre high Methodist church spire in Blackheath has just been produced along with regular contracts for steel panelling, shelving, partitioning, kiln plates for the glass industry and patio heaters.

Other projects include regular orders for alloy floor, side panels, fixing brackets and dashboard parts for Westfield Sports Cars and the metal framing and strengthening for the flight simulator capsule which is then encapsulated in glass fibre.

For the two directors, growth of De-Met has been rapid, achieving a 90 per cent success rate in winning jobs quoted and investment in better facilities and equipment has been a major priority.

Starting with an LVD PPEB 80 CNC press brake in its 1500ft2 original premises in January 1999 this was followed with an LVD Delta 1250 punch press in the April and a quick move to new premises of 2,900ft2 to accommodate the machines and workload.

Since then, with a policy of 'give us the job' and by avoiding telecoms, aerospace and larger batches of automotive work; small quantities, prototype and special projects have become the order of the day.

This has been to such an extent that LVD's CADMAN fully integrated design, CNC machine programming and simulation system was installed to improve efficiency on the press brake and punch and help in design for manufacture advice to customers.

This investment paid-off quickly, leading Gary Trim and Lee Kempson to consider how they can get to grips with the large number of enquiries that they were also being forced to turn away.

A quick study of the locality revealed they were also not being considered for larger work and there were no competitors around able to machine thick stainless steel.

Also, those that could did not provide a bending facility or MIG and TIG welding which left De-Met thinking how they could provide a wider service.

The decision was made to enter the laser cutting arena and they duly summoned six laser profiling machine suppliers to show them their wares.

Gary Trim, Managing Director describes the moment as: "It was like walking into a car showroom when we knew immediately the machine we needed.

The LVD Axel just looked right, the specification was ideal for what we needed but there was one drawback - it was too big for our factory!" The problem then magnified.

If they wanted to laser profile they also needed to provide a bending service.

So a further LVD PPEB press brake was put on the shopping list, but this time a larger 1700kN version was the target.

The decision had then to be made to extend the factory by another 2,000ft2 purposely to house the Axel with its twin-pallet shuttle system and 4kW laser power.

Says Manufacturing Director, Lee Kempson: "It was pointless to go for the hybrid type laser, we needed to maximise the return on the investment with the twin shuttle tables to keep the machine utilisation as high as possible and the factory extension had to be done." Follows on Lee Kempson: "With the integrated CADMAN off-line programming and process simulation package we only had to add the laser 'L' module.

The beauty of the whole system is that we can offer a redesign service to customers to adapt and improve their components so they can be made easier and at lower cost.

CADMAN also accepts AUTOCAD designs which many of our customers use, so that was important." "Because CADMAN starts at the sheet metal bending process for programming the laser or punch press, it is able to accurately calculate the original blank size and automatically take into account the material, its thickness and any bending allowances.

This saves us having to make trial bends and go from one process to the other knowing it is right first time.

We can easily offer a seven day turn around on most orders and can also stop a job, switch in a quick one for someone else and go back into the original production very quickly," he says.

The Axel 2513S uses a 4 kW GE-Fanuc HF fast axial flow CO2 laser and is able to process steel up to 20mm thick, stainless steel up to 15mm and aluminium up to 10mm, with a traverse speed up to 170m/min.

This capability is ideal for De-Met in taking on thicker steel section business from traditional profile burning which, according to Gary Trim: "Is much slower and has to be finished machined to get a decent edge and remove any thermal effects on the part." He has even found that on some occasions, the price they have to charge for laser cutting is not that much different from punching due to the efficiency of the process, and with the nesting capability of CADMAN, efficiency is much higher because sheet utilisation is far better.

"That's an important factor in competitive pricing," he maintains.

Also, because of the twin-shuttle tables, the operators can load and unload 'in-cycle' with a pallet exchange carried out in about 20 sec.

The single Fanuc 160i-L control also controls the laser and axis drives as well as the automation.

This not only simplifies the operators task but the single source package is able to faithfully reproduce contours and acute angles at the most effective cutting speed.

The power of the laser is continuously adapted relative to the vectorial speed of the drive systems and this allows the machine to maintain repeatability within +0.02mm.

With the LVD Laser Eye optical sensor De-Met can perform punching operations on the Delta 1250 and then transfer the sheet to the Axel.

Via the non-contact optical sensor datuming, the sheet can be quickly referenced from a pre-punched feature or two adjacent edges and the laser profiling started relative to the datum.

The part can then be shipped to either of the PPEB press brakes for final bending.

Lee Kempson maintains the latest PPEB 170 press brake is ideal due to the common Windows-based software that is used on CADMAN and the Axel.

With 20-gigabyte hard drive, the interactive material databases for bend allowance, angle correction and spring back significantly speed up the machine setting.

"This is critical for one-off type prototypes," he says, "and allows us to treat them like any other job we do." Included in the PPEB specification is the latest Lazer-Safe guarding system from LVD which, according to Gary Trim, makes the machine much quicker to operate on larger components due to the reduced movement of the operator between each bending sequence.

"It's all part of the overall application of technology by LVD to make our life easier," he concludes.

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